


when i said it, i thought it was true

by cryptidhearted



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Blood, Canonical Character Death, M/M, anything beyond that is spoilery, everybody but tim is dead, tim introspection immediately following the showdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:47:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19059238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidhearted/pseuds/cryptidhearted
Summary: when i am dead, i won't join their ranksbecause they are both holy and free.and i'm in ohio, satanic and chained upand until the end, that's how it'll be.i said make me love myself, so that i might love you.don't make me a liar, because i swear to godwhen i said it, i thought it was true.





	when i said it, i thought it was true

**Author's Note:**

> [find me on tumblr!](https://cryptidhearted.tumblr.com/)

Taste.

Coppery blood on his tongue, gathering in his mouth where his cheek is pressed against the concrete. Warm, still, as it gathers around his lips and the slight split between them is enough for it to drip downwards. Drool and red dripping from the corner of his mouth to the floor beneath him, the warmth of his body leeching into the cold stone.

 _You bit your tongue,_ supplies the last thought in his head that isn’t completely gone to the static that feels like it’s about to consume him. He swallows. _In the fight._ _You bit your tongue._

Touch.

The floor beneath him is smooth, and slightly unsteady. His head is lower than his shoulders and something uncomfortable digs into his throat—edge. An edge. Not a knife. Stairs. Stairs? He’d collapsed. After the deed was done, he’d collapsed, in exhaustion or sickness or relief he could not guess because the static only grows louder and louder as he tries to understand more beyond the sensations that press into his body at every angle.

He tries to breathe deep.

Coughs.

Sputters, a second.

Spits blood onto the concrete beneath him.

Tim pushes himself onto his hands and knees, breathing heavy as he shifts back from the stairs. He can see the camera on the landing. The pocketknife had been inches away from the hand sprawled over them. Flashes of red linger on the concrete where his hands had pressed against, smears and handprints and Tim thinks he’s crawled here, had maybe been about to grab for the camera-- or had he dropped it when he collapsed? Is it still recording, or has he destroyed something else of Jay’s?

_Jay._

His head doesn’t like that name. It comes with a sharp stabbing behind his eyes that makes him wince as he sits back on his haunches, bringing a hand to his forehead and digging the heel of his palm into his eye like it’s a good enough gesture to quell the pain. It’s familiar. Something he knows, steady as the concrete beneath his knees and so he leans into it because he has no other choice. His breathing is coming unsteady, short gasps with a catch at the back of his throat, and a new sensation sets off—

His eyes burn.

No, he decides, quickly. Hasn’t earned that. No point.

Backtrack. Rewind?

He blinks away the burn, breathes deep again, wipes his mouth with—hands colored red with blood, still, and an absent thought suggests the most he’s managed to do is smear his face with more of it. The taste on his tongue lingers like there’s no chance of it ever going away and Tim thinks in passing of the shitty-tasting medicine his Mama shoved down his throat when he got a cold, and the same way he held it in his mouth and spat it right back up as soon as she turned her back because he couldn’t stand it—The sharpness of the blood like pennies in his mouth and as he reaches over clumsily to pick up the pocketknife he spits more onto the floor of the stairs, saliva sticking to his lips and dripping in messy ropes to the stone until he wipes his mouth again.

Sight.

It’s dark.

Great thinking.

There are lights outside that shine through the windows in the second floor of Benedict Hall,  but it hurts when he makes the effort to look at them, and so he ignores it the same way he ignores the burning in his eyes and the gnawing in the pit of his stomach and the way his limbs protest with every movement. He sits back again, looks down at the knife in his hand too dulled with blood to gleam in the artificial light outside. He looks over his shoulder, to the open door, to the light shining upon a patch of dried blood that is the last thing Tim can acknowledge of Alex Kralie’s former existence, and he doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh or if the burning in his eyes will win out instead.

He slips the knife back into his pocket without another thought. The static is all he can hear with every movement. He knows quite well that he should hear the rustling of his clothing, the sound of his heavy boots on the concrete floor, maybe the camera’s low battery beep that was often accompanied by an exasperated sigh or a frustrated _Really?_ What he wants to hear is someone _speaking_ to him, as if he could will a voice or two into existence and it’d calm him down just to hear something else. _It would,_ he thinks, _but there’s not any getting that, is there?_

The knife settles against his cigarettes, and Tim swallows again. How much blood until he’s fortunate enough to puke again, he wonders.

Instead what he hears is static. All-encompassing static unaccompanied by the visual snow he’d expect to go along with it, just the ringing in his ears and the white noise to drown out everything else. He pictures sirens. Maybe the groundskeeper found a bloodstain. A body. A threat. He pictures shouting and cars outside as he leans up against the wall, pictures floodlights and flashlights and police officers coming to—put him in handcuffs, lock him in a cell again, tie him down and force drugs down his throat until they find a combination that sedates him, he pictures an injection or an electric chair or something so the choking becomes laughing becomes screaming becomes crying becomes sweet, blessed, blissful silence—

He coughs, steps down the stairs at his leisure, and kneels to pick up the camera.

He twists the screen, sees the darkness of Benedict Hall greeting him again, and expects that maybe he’d find something else with it pointed to the ground. Maybe the camera would glitch and struggle along in the same way, the screen flickering and matching the static. Instead, it simply glows up at him, informing him in the steady steely way it always has that _it is recording, that it was recording, that he has been recorded._

Tim coughs again, not bothering to cover it as he spits another splatter of blood. Still his? _Hope so._

He sniffs and reaches without a word to turn the camera off.

There’s nothing left for it to record.

The burning in his eyes and the headache behind them intensifies in the same moment. Jay would want him to keep recording, he thinks, but what’s the point of that anymore. What’s the point? Alex is dead. The camera saw it, he thinks, if his angle was good enough. _Lights, camera, action._ Why’d it have to end up like this? Alex is dead, and besides that matter, so is Jay. He died alone in the dark with that _THING_ standing over him because Alex was fortunate enough to get to be the one to die in the sunlight streaming through the window instead of Jay, because Jay was an idiot who stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and who surely would’ve found his way to the bottom of a ditch anyway, or that stupid fucking tunnel in Rosswood, but no, Alex was the lucky one, Alex got to go nice and fast with nobody there but him, Alex got to go with company that maybe he liked for a minute or two, at some point, instead of—instead of--

_yourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfault_

The volume on the static turns up and Tim winces. He’s halfway tempted to toss the camera down the rest of the stairs as he stands up, but the impulsive thought doesn’t last. It’s not his camera. He didn’t know her for long, in the grand scheme of things, but he likes to think his Mama taught him a couple manners.

Instead, he opens the camera, and pulls the tape from its position. He runs his thumb over the smooth black plastic in the darkness, feeling it out by touch and wondering who in their god damn right mind would want to see what just happened to them.

He exhales, slowly. The bleeding in his mouth is stopping. The urge to cough isn’t.

Breathe in, breathe out. _Very good, Timothy. Can you do that again for me?_ Breathe in, breathe out.

Alex Kralie is dead. Death of the author. Fuck authorial intent. Good. He won’t be missed. Jay Merrick is dead. Tim pictures film noir, absent thoughts of steely-eyed detectives, but that doesn’t fit. Not Jay, no, Jay was not the definition of a film noir; he pictures instead a children’s cartoon he guesses he saw at some point, some colorful animal in a deerstalker with a magnifying glass, and Tim can’t quite help himself from the smile that curls his lips and the warmth in his eyes that might just be enough to kindle a bonfire if he keeps ignoring it asserts itself with a vengeance. Jay Merrick is dead and Tim doesn’t allow himself to cry because accepting that thought is in the same vein as _saying goodbye_ is and he’s never been particularly good at that, and he knows that if he were to spend his time crying now the most he’d get is an empty feeling later. Later. He’ll cry later. He wipes his eyes. Hasn’t earned it yet.

Alex Kralie is dead. But so is Jay Merrick. And so is—

Like a jolt through him, Tim feels himself tense.

So is Brian Thomas.

His heart sinks.

Three flights of stairs and a couple of hallways. That’s the distance. But it’s also a lot bigger than that, and it has been since Tim’s bleary mind presented him once again with the memories of being curled into a wall, Brian’s voice ringing in his ears over the static and his coughing for just seconds, to hear his name called by someone who he loved and who loved him, _who he loved and who LOVED him_ and hear it end, too, with heavy noise and a dragging body into darkness.

The man in the hood wasn’t Brian. Hadn’t been for a long time. Wasn’t going to be again, when he closes the distance of three flights of stairs and a couple of hallways, and so there’s no point in making the monumental journey—

But his feet carry him that way anyway.

The camera is set down on the flight of stairs where it had been dropped previously, and Tim exchanges the pill bottle in his pocket for the tape, feeling an edge dig into his thigh through the fabric as his shaky, bloody hands struggle to open the bottle. The pills rattle like a familiar lullaby and it’s only now that Tim realizes his self-control has failed him once again, as the lights shining through the windows get brighter as he moves nearer and nearer to the bottom floor are fuzzy and messy and hot through the burning in his vision, filtered through a kaleidoscope as something catches in his throat.

He swallows that something, and the pill, and descends the second flight of stairs.

Tim wishes he were feral.

It’d be better, that way, maybe. It’d be better to join the man in the hood and stay with him. He wouldn’t remember it all, but that’d be better—They could pretend, be creatures in the forest that little kids tell spooky stories about. He could be nothing but sharp teeth and a long tongue behind a porcelain painted mask. He could get used to looking into a perpetual frown, he thinks, and even if fabric-wreathed hands around his throat and a firm voice saying _down boy_ wasn’t what he’d wanted for most of the time, it was better than nothing. He wishes he were feral because it’s better to imagine kneeling on a dirty floor with his eyes closed, breathing heavy with his cheek pressed against the denim on his lover partner master friend’s knee. Better to imagine the overwhelming static and empty noise cut through with a voice that says _you’re going to do this for me_ because if he doesn’t have instructions he’ll claw himself to bits or hurt a stranger or just start running and keep running until something breaks. He wouldn’t remember it all. It’d come to him in bits and pieces and flashes and fits and starts, but there’d be a presence that didn’t wish harm on him. Isn’t that enough to be happy?

His boots make contact with the bottom floor. He wishes he were feral. He wishes he were mindless and empty and waiting to be filled up by somebody else’s guidance and instruction, because then it’d be the two of them. He wouldn’t mind having to choke somebody. Kill, once or twice. He’s done it even without the protection of the mask, now, since it’s mostly Alex’s blood staining his shirt and his mouth and his face and his hands. He wouldn’t mind being bait or tucking objects away for somebody else to find, but there’s not much of a mystery to make anymore or anyone to kill with Jay dead and Alex ripped to shreds to match.

He wouldn’t mind.

The dark cut through with artificial light through the windows stretches before him.

But mostly he just wishes this had never happened.

Brian—because no matter how much Tim tries, he can’t bring himself to think of him as a body—is still where he fell, lying with his arms stretched out and his head slumped against the concrete in the same way Tim’s had been moments earlier. The static grows louder, not quieter, and Tim tries to imagine what his voice sounds like again. All that he manages is the audition tape again, empty words of Brian being polite to Kralie, who Tim has never met before, and inviting him out to dinner while Tim failed to find the gumption to tell him _Hey, Brian, I was sort of hoping it was a date_ in front of a stranger. Sitting in front of the camera because Brian had insisted with that smile that made his heart jump and Tim has never, ever been very good at saying no, especially not when confronted by tousled brown hair and that handsome coat that was his favorite Brian owned and a smile like sunshine and starlight and the time he got drunk enough to pretend he wasn’t so fucked in the head because a cute boy was holding his hand.

He doesn’t want to remember Kralie. He’ll hold on tight to Jay because as fleeting as it was, that mattered, but it’s Brian Thomas who gets the death grip as Tim closes the insurmountable distance between himself and the man lying on the floor.

He kneels—then scoffs at himself, though he doesn’t hear it over the static, and sits down instead. Cross-legged. His pill bottle isn’t in his hand anymore, but he feels it when he pats his pockets to find his cigarettes and his lighter. Blood-soaked still as he puts the cigarette in his mouth and lights it, and he closes his eyes.

He doesn’t want to talk. He thinks if he tries he’ll only be yelling, and a yell doesn’t work when you’re trying to say goodbye; not when it’s a sad goodbye, not when it’s an empty goodbye, and he can’t yell with a cigarette between his teeth anyway.

Tim breathes smoke, feels the heat from his eyes drip down his cheeks, leaving tracks in the blood on his face and dripping down onto the denim of his jeans where his legs are crossed.

Brian—the man in the hood—lays still before him, without so much as a twitch from when he fell. When Tim threw him off. When he jumped. When Tim forced him to let go. The red eyes and perpetual frown stare directly ahead, and in the back of his mind Tim wonders to himself if he could figure out how to close those eyes or if the fabric was doomed to examine the ceiling of this shitty closed college building until it rotted around him.

Brian doesn’t deserve this.

Tim doesn’t move an inch until he finishes the cigarette. When it’s burned down nearly to the filter, he exhales a final time, staring unblinkingly at Brian’s outstretched arms and tilted head and extinguishes it on the floor right next to his own thigh despite everything in his brain telling him to put it out on his own damn hand, because he deserves that. He deserves a lot more suffering than this. A part of him hopes he’ll get it. After all, he lost them all so fast. Why should he have that luxury? He’s never earned a quick death.

He wishes he were feral.

Flicking the butt of his cigarette away, Tim holds his breath and slinks closer to Brian.

When he thinks of Brian he thinks of brown hair that looks blonde in the sunlight. Thinks of the gap in his teeth and the pretty clear eyes that Tim still dreamt of even after years of knowing he would never see them again. But here he is, lying in the dark, nothing in the light of the windows but the hand covered in fabric, with the stony-faced fabric frown staring up at the ceiling. He thinks of a smile, mostly, the kind of smile that Tim had never seen before in his life but the kind of smile that made everything feel alright and the kind of smile that he wishes, wishes, wishes he had ever deserved to see.

He remembers, dimly, lying on damp and sun-warmed asphalt with the kind of agonizing pain in his leg that made his empty mind tempted to rip it off. He’d been real close, too, trying to twist his body and hands to sink claws and teeth into his thigh when somebody had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, fingers digging into the fabric of his jacket to pull him back with a snort and _what are you trying to do?_ He doesn’t remember much after that. Figures he got help getting home. Woke up with a broken leg close enough to the hospital to drag his body to it and try to fumble his way through an explanation. He couldn’t tell them what happened before the injury and the most he remembers of after is the desperate gnashing of trying to sink fangs into his own thigh, but he figured the doctors would hate hearing anything like that when he’s already got a pretty shitty permanent record.

His hands are shaking and he won’t stop fucking crying.

Tim settles on his knees next to Brian and reaches with trembling hands for the edge of the fabric hood. His fingers curl into it and he knows the right way to pull—push it up and he sees his face again. Because he still had one, under the mask. The man in the hood, who was not Brian, still had patchwork pieces of Brian in him, because who else would still want to look after what he became? Who would still care enough to make sure that shitty creature he turned into or had always been didn’t hurt itself or anyone else and kept it busy with things that would satisfy it, make it feel like it’d done something special for someone special and make him settle down and rest his head on his knee and sleep, maybe, so he could go home.

Bits and pieces and fits and flashes.

He pushes the mask up and sees his face.

If it weren’t for the four-story fall, Tim thinks he could convince himself that Brian was just sleeping. It’s the same face he’s seen before, tucked in against his pillows with limbs all entangled with each other. His eyes are closed and it’s a relief because then Tim can convince himself he hasn’t forgotten the exact color and maybe he’ll wake up soon and show him again.

He sniffs. Swallows the sob threatening to well up in his chest and turns his head away from Brian to cough instead, a hacking, ugly series of sounds that makes the static spike and makes the pain double up on itself. He pushes the rest of the mask away. Runs bloody fingers through his hair. Tries again and fails to swallow the sob, tries again and fails to keep himself from coughing, and unceremoniously shifts his body closer to wrap his arms around Brian’s neck.

He doesn’t like the way he moves. He’s almost grateful for the static because it means he doesn’t have to hear it, but the feeling under his hands is nothing comfortable, and it breaks the illusion just as quickly as Tim had tried to give it to himself. He ignores it, though, because it’s something physical in all the empty noise and something he can imagine matters, even if it doesn’t, really. Even if this is nothing. Because it is nothing. Brian isn’t here anymore. Hasn’t been here in a long time. The man in the hood is dead. Your fault, because he’s dead and Tim Wright is the reason he’s dead, and Tim Wright is the one who has to go on living when he doesn’t deserve to take so much as another breath.

His face tucks into the crook of Brian’s broken neck and Tim holds tighter and breathes in, exhales with a gasp that becomes a whimper that becomes a sob that becomes a howl, and though he doesn’t hear the noise over the static he feels it, feels the ripping and tearing in his throat like his coughing fits would bring and his fingers sink in, he pictures claws sinking into the back of a hooded jacket and he wants a reprimand, wants a refusal, wants a laugh, wants a smile, wants something to remind him he’s not alone, wants something to tell him that it’ll be okay, wants something to wake him up to sunrise and that soft smile and wants wants wants wants wants.

Blood and tears and snot and drool are staining the front of Brian’s hoodie, and Tim feels guilty because he knows it’ll stain. He’s yelling right into Brian’s ear, and he’d hate to deafen his friend, but—but—

he wants wants wants.

Alex Kralie is dead, and he didn’t matter.

Jay Merrick is dead, and Tim will miss a hand in his, a mystery to solve, and motivation to seek a cure for whatever fucked up darkness refused to leave him.

Brian Thomas is dead, and Tim is certain he will never know real sunlight again, because nothing else could ever even try to measure up to the warmth of hearing that someone well and truly loved him and meant it.

Tim shuts his eyes.


End file.
